Parents speak out against House bill that would limit vaccination exemptions in state

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OLYMPIA — In a committee hearing room at the state Capitol, parents spoke out Tuesday against a House bill that would limit the exemptions a parent could use for not vaccinating their children in Washington state.

Currently, parents can opt out of vaccinations for their kids for religious, health or personal beliefs.

House Bill 2009, introduced by State Rep. June Robinson, D-Everett, would remove the ‘personal beliefs’ option. It was heard before the House Health Care & Wellness Committee Tuesday morning.

“The issue before us today is about personal freedom,” one parent told the committee.

“People should be able, should be allowed, to make their own choices when it comes to health care,” another said.

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According to the state Health Department, the personal belief exemption is by far the most used in the state to opt out of vaccinations. Washington state has one of the highest exemption rates in the country -- at 4.6%, it's more than triple the national average.

Robinson says it`s up the government to keep our community safe.

"We as individuals need to be responsible for our own health, but we also need to think about how our actions affect those around us," Robinson said.

Health officials, far outnumbered at Tuesday's hearing, said vaccines against childhood illnesses are not foolproof but are effective and can sometimes save lives.

"The danger is real, every unvaccinated child is a health risk to our community," one said.

But some parents argued that mom and dad know best, not the government.

dg54321

Nonsense. You have the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate your child. We the people have the right to determine we don’t want your unvaccinated child around other children spreading entirely preventable diseases because of your rampant paranoia and unfounded fear. If there was credible evidence that vaccines were harmful, then I would feel differently, but there isn’t. There is pseudoscience and nonsense repeated ad nauseum over the Internet and it is blindly accepted as fact by the gullible and mentally ill.

I wish people like you could travel back to the days before vaccinations when people would lose 4 out of 8 kids to polio, mumps, rubella, smallpox, or even just the freaking flu. When burying your own child was common and adulthood disabilities due to crippling disease in the ones the serious diseases didn’t kill was all too regular.

Or hell, read a freaking book once in a while. This is all written down in the annals of history if you’d care to visit your local library, or look at anything except Infowars-esque websites all day.

Don’t be a fool. Vaccinate your dang kids. Or be rightly isolated from the rest of us as the pariah you so obviously want to be.

DBNWY

Good Lord you know little about vaccinations. God save your children!! Billions of dollars paid out from our government for vaccine injured children. Your children’s health should be more important to you then blindly allowing profiting pedi’s to inject your poor precious angels. #cdcwhistleblower start here mama and never stop until you have more than a little information. http://vaers.hhs.gov/index

dg54321

youareuninformed

Make sure to isolate your dang kids when you inject them with that garbage.

I will bring my kids out and go everywhere with them. They do not have a disease, like your contaminated kids do. You decided to inject them with a disease and you walking around with your precious contaminated walking virus, not me. You are the one spreading garbage.

dg54321

They don’t have a disease, YET. Maybe they’ll be lucky enough like these other poor unvaccinated kids to get measles, an entirely preventable disease and then they’ll quarantine the lot of you for our protection.

Until then, have fun homeschooling your children, because we don’t want your disease ridden snot-nosed kids infecting the rest of us with entirely preventable diseases.

John Doe

ok How in the world is an unvaccinated child who does not have any disease going to spread these diseases? It is impossible…yet on the other hand a vaccinated child can spread the disease (in which they just got vaccinated for) for anywhere from 3-6 weeks. Vaccinated children and adults are the culprit of these outbreakes

dg54321

What a line of crap. Vaccines CANNOT cause the spread of the disease you’re being vaccinated for because the virus in the vaccine is DEAD. Speaking of education, you need to get some. Any unvaccinated person is at potential risk AND a potential infection vector for others, not to mention a mutation risk. A virus needs a host to grow, spread and mutate.

Maybe a remedial biology course is what you need. Plenty of sources you can use to educate yourself, but I know you won’t.

John Doe

OMG that is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard…have you looked at any research? Some are live viruses. Some are dead, but that doesn’t stop it from becoming active in your system. You obviously have only listened to the media and have no knowledge whatsoever. Read the inserts, or do some more in depth studies…because frankly you sound like a total idiot…or a sheeple. Vaccinated people are the ones spreading this crap. The CDC which I don’t put faith in anymore but you do, even tells people who have been recently vaccinated to stay away from Immuno compromised individuals. There is a reason SHEDDING…use your head!

dg54321

John Doe

I really wish you knew how stupid you sound, unlike the pro vax people, the anti vax actually do their research. All you people do is listen to the news (which has an agenda). If you actually read books or done any research you would have found out that these childhood diseases are only bad when it comes to people with malnutrition problems or immunodeficient…and the inserts even tell the vaccinated people to stay away from those individuals after they have received their vaccines. Other things you would learn, modern plumbing and sanitation is what caused these diseases to die out, NOT vaccines. Vaccines have never been proven to work (if you even read the inserts you would see that). They are called EFFECTIVE, because they create an antibody…which happens when you have a foreign object in your body…but the vaccines do not help with immunity, that is a different side of the immune system. So before you start judging others and telling them to read a book, you need to take your own advice!

dg54321

LOL do their “research”! That’s hilarious. Everything you said is a complete and total lie. Vaccines do not cause spread of disease, they do the EXACT opposite. You’re a freaking idiot who should be isolated for everyone else’s safety.

Anonymous

Put down your Pharma flavored Koolaid DG5432!

If passed, this bill will unethically require forced medical procedures upon those who object because they have taken the time to educate themselves on the true risks of vaccines. We are living in an age of the great denial of vaccine risks and denial of individual freedom. Because vaccine manufacturers market and sell the only product in the history of the country that is exempt from all liability for design or manufacturing defects, by making vaccines mandatory, people will become nothing more than enslaved consumers of potentially dangerous products marketed by companies with no economic or legal incentive to improve those products.
Mandatory forced vaccination will trample on some of the foundations of medical ethics which require fully informed consent to any invasive medical procedure.

dg54321

It doesn’t require anything, you have the choice on whether or not you send your kids to public school. So don’t vaccinate them, and don’t send them to public school. Or if you want them to attend public school with the rest of the kids who have parents smart enough to vaccinate them, you can vaccinate your little cretins too so they aren’t the young version of Typhoid Mary. Very simple, but I’m not surprised an anti-vax nutter can’t get that.

Carey

Here is the MMRII insert from Merck’s own webpage, which clearly lists death, atypical measles, and measles-like rash as adverse reactions to this vaccine. It also lists diabetes and encephalitis, encephalopathy, and convulsions as adverse reactions. If you cannot open your eyes a half inch to see what even the vaccine maker itself says are adverse reactions, then you are basically braindead. Good luck to you.

Diablo Pedo

Why are they worried about people that are not inoculated if they are, because if they are the ones who are not shouldn’t be a threat to them. As far as the “greater good” BS, you could eliminate half the people on earth and say it was for the “greater good”, OH wait that’s what Hitler was doing.

HT

“At the end of the day, the issue here is one of freedom, and freedom is the freedom to choose – even if we make a bad choice. The argument that I must vaccinate my children for the good of the community is not only scientifically questionable, it is an unethical precept. It is the argument all dictators and totalitarians have used. “Comrade, you must work tirelessly for the good of the collective. You must give up your money and property for the good of the collective, and now … you must allow us to inject your children with what we deem is good for the collective.” If American’s don’t stand up against this, then we are lost. Because we have lost ownership of ourselves. Our bodies are no longer solely ours – we and our children are able to be commandeered for the “greater good.””
Dr. Lee Hieb, M.D., past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons

parkertsmith

If you’re child has been vaccinated and supposedly “protected”, why are you worried if my child isn’t vaccinated?? I am not willing to give my children over 20 vaccines and hope they are one of the lucky ones who don’t have a reaction… this is the parents right to choose! Also, I watch children and it’s very interesting that my unvaccinated children are much healthier than fully vaccinated children… kinda strange.